Tarot Collectors Forum 2009 Collaborative Deck

A Collaborative yes and one I participated in so it's not with some pride i mention it here - you see I do more than just collecting ;-)

The "team" behind it are some of the members of the Tarot Collectors Forum - some of whom are well known and celebrated artist in the field of tarot like among others: Arnell Ando, Ly Marquez de Narciso, Stephan Lange ....
That what made our 'little' just that tad different from others, and also why I feature it here even when it has been 'out' quite some time is that it recently was featured at the Museo Dei Tarocchi and will be part of their permanent collection, speaking of exposure this one counts.

The link to the special page to the deck is here at the bottom of that page where it says 'Deck', if you click, you will see one card by each of us scroll by with the title and a little bit of info gathered from the LWB and again if there is a website it is shown underneath) the card scrolling by, all 30 artists have a card present and accounted for and it looks wonderful .

See also:
Tarot Collectors Forum 2010 Collaborative Deck
Tarot Collectors Forum 2011 Collaborative Deck

The “i Tarocchi di Andrea Picini”

Change can be good, change can be bad, but mostly change is just that: change something different but nor better or worse than before just different. This can be true for many aspects of life including tarot! This week I had the pleasure of receiving the majors only version of the Picini tarot what gave me the opportunity to compare both versions the 22-version to the 78-version, and yes between both versions the cards underwent change (mostly in colour and hue, sometimes some extra details elements).As to be expected I preferred some cards in one version, and others in the other version – besides their number of cards these changes made them feel different enough to be 2 different decks by one artist rather as the 78-card version being an ‘up-grade” of the first edition, different but better nor worse.

*A little side note here, why do the cards that stand the most for change in the cards, Wheel of Fortune, Death and Tower, are those that in the ± 600 years tarot history underwent the less change?

** In these images the image on top comes from the majors-only version, the one below from the 78-card version.

Billard Tarot

Sometimes I do have luck in finding decks that have been on my want-that-deck-list for ages (and this last year it seems I'm very lucky). While searching on-line for another rare deck I just bought I stumbled upon the Billard tarot - I hesitated 1 sec. even not that much, even the price they asked was sweet (ok the box was missing, but then it was the cards I wanted, the box is only of secondary or even third importance).
The minors in this deck are boring - just a suit-symbol and a number or court-symbol BUT the majors ah those majors, minimal but elegant and even with a 'high-fashion' sense and look to them. The deck was self published by the artist back in the 80ies (probably) and still has that feeling of a bygone era where technology and artisans worked in perfect harmony to result in a great product of art.

Tarocchi Di Romangna by Luigi E. Mattei

Who ever said banks are a nessesarily evil? Well they may be correct but sometimes they do something good also - even tarot wise, in this case the bank in question is the "Cassa di Bisparmio in Bologna" (savings bank from Bologna) as they where some years ago in 1984 responsible for the publishing of this deck. The deck seems to be giving a cultural and historical overview of the region of Bologna ending with the contemporary image of the auto-races in Imola as the world card.

I've never heard of this deck before finding it, and information on-line about it is as good as non-existent, but i'm sure happy to have it in my collection. It is a nicely produced cards & book set that comes in a square box, published in a limited edition of 3000 set, attention has been made to produce a good quality product - perhaps a publicity item or a celebration of some kind.



Reference Manteia 6 p 

Revelation Tarot

Nope not the Zach Wong one - but a self published one I found on Etsy I it's an interesting large sized B&W deck from Australia, made by the scraperboard technique. It is created by Jahne Hope-Williams, a woman with many interests and talents, among other tarot and yoga, 2 disciplines apparently combines in this deck (as she states on her shop) . The whole comes packed in a nice lidded box with an organdy bag and a LWB.
For the moment its a majors only deck but miss Hope-Williams just started working on the minors. The artist also has a page on FaceBook here
and her Etsy shop is here

Gaian Tarot - 78 cards version Special edition

At last it arrived, after being stuck one whole month at the Belgian customs, my limited edition of the Gaian tarot arrived!
After being relieved it wasn't lost or damaged began the joy of exploring and discovering each and every card, and what a joy it was (and is) this deck has been in the making for many years, what gave it the time to mature and bloom at full potential, combining the age-old archetypes of the tarot with a contemporary and multicultural in a most successful way. This is a great deck for the modern tarot reader and his clients, that want tarot with a modern-day feeling and a strong earthbound spirituality without being one-sided. The artist behind it Joanna Powell Colbert truly mastered her craft and this show in every card no wonder that a big company (Llewellyn) picked it up and will be publishing it in a mass market version in 2011.

The deck's/artist's website is here

Waite J.K. Tarot by Seigan Nakajima

There are many WCS* decks out there but few are this elegant and even 'trippy' (in a good way) as the Japanese Waite J.K. Tarot, so i was vary lucky to obtain this deck from 1975 - what is by coincidence also my year of birth what makes it extra special.The deck follows closely the Pamela Coleman Smith originals closely but also some personal touches and changes.


* aka the Rider Waite Tarot, but as Mr. Rider was only the original publisher why let him take credit for more than that. I, and many others among who tarot authorities like Frank K Jensen prefer to credit the persons behind the deck namely Edward Waite & Pamela Coleman Smith.

Infinite Visions Tarot

Yet another little gem of self-publishing this deck is created by computer collage technique using the art of old masters and not using the most well know ones so this deck offers lots of visual discoveries, while remaining close to the Waithe-Colman-Smith tradition, and is a pleasure to look at with it saturated colors and glossy lamination. The artist offers 2 versions for sale on her website one cut out and with rounded corners and one less expensive 'do-it-yourself-version' where you have to cut and round yourself (what could be interested for those on a budget).

There are 80 cards in it the 2 extras are the 'Dark Priestess' and the 'Dark Magician'

The artist's website where you can look at all cards, get information about it and even have a free reading with it is: http://www.infinitevisionstarot.com

The Fuller Tarot

Sometimes you get extras when you buy a deck, like for example a journal but this was the first time I've gotten a deck as extra to the tarot-journal - and it was so worth getting it. It's a nicely styled deck in grey-tones with some very interesting imagery, some close and (semi-)traditional others depart radically from the usual and are rather puzzling.

Now on sale at the artists etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/fullertarot

A Thelemic Tarot

For one who's not into the Crowley/Harris Thoth deck, not that i don't love it, it just doesn't do anything for me, I sure like it's derivatives! Compared to the other 2 big traditions in tarot namely the Waithe Coleman Smith and the Marseilles there are extremely few Thoth remakes so each one is special to me.

So last week one of these specials back from the '70ies arrived in my post namely the A Thelemic Tarot - The Major Arcana created and published in a limited edition of only 499 decks by Augustus Donelly back in 1977, the deck is one of those to-color-decks complete with instruction leaflet, reproduced (photcopied?) from a handwritten original. The artist writes: " I have tried to remain as close as possible to the structure of the Lady Frieda Harris pack which was painted under the personal guidance of Crowley. The designs which differ greatly are a result personal experience during meditation ... the power remains the same" The artist clearly expected that this deck would be used with Crowley's Book of Thoth and thus no guide book is provided with the deck.

He did it again!

The « he » in question is the talented and prolific Philippine artist Lynyrd Narciso, creator of many decks among them the most widely know being the Vanessa Tarot published by U.S. Games Systems. His latest deck is called Tarot Bagong Sining a visually stunning major’s only deck in an art-nouveau style BUT with a twist - each of the 22 cards has 2 versions one male, one female, and as a bonus this deck also with 2 fun mini-decks called “Tarot Giguil” and “Tarot Parac”. If you want one, be quick as this is a very limited edition of only 45!!

The neo-marseilles!

I hear you think the what????
Don't look it up in a dictionary you wont find it, its a therm i created to define the new, modern and wild Tarot de Marseille decks (TdM) that emerged the previous century and will continue to come out in times to come.
The problem with classifying what a TdM is and what deck's aren't is that the TdM is still a living tradition,and as with all living things it changes, it evolves.The "historical" decks are part of the world they where born in, even if we would try we wouldn't be able to (re)create a true historic TdM only our view of it, as for the "modern" ones they are what the TdM evolved into in our time and world, born out of the classical TdM mother but with a different father, a different world and as our world is more complex and aeclectic than the historical period of the first TdM's so are the modern TdM (with i like to call neo-marseille as in still Marseille yet more and new) very much different form each other and from their historic "grandparents"
A prime example and beautiful deck all-round is the Tarot de la Rea by Alain Bocher that you can see below.

Tarot Rustique

Ok I admit it – easily even – I LOVE the TdM (Tarot de Marseille) pattern the historic reprints as well as the modern versions of it (especially the modern I would even say) and this week I found and received yet another one of those in the mail, I had never heard of it before, not of it’s artist (and very few things are to be found apparently about them online).
The deck I’m speaking of is the “Tarot Rustique” by Francois Joubert in a wonderfully naïve style published back in 1984 in a limited edition of only 600 decks, and for you all here are some cards from it..

My first entry

People have blogs for many different reasons, to share their lives loves and passions and mine is tarot especially the collecting aspect of it - yes not all people who are tarot decks are (exclusively) interested in the divination aspect of it. So what better reason and way to share my love of it and the wonderful discoveries I make than through a blog, I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did creating it.

O and for those wondering where that image above comes from it's a manipulated image of myself I used in a collaborative tarot deck I made in 2008 together with other tarot enthusiasts